John Rolfe

In his letter of 1614 John Rolfe says,

"I make betweene God and my own conscience, be a sufficient witness, at the dreadfull day of judgement...to condemne me herin, if my chiefest intent and purpose be not, to strive with all my power of body and minde, in the undertaking of so mightie a matter....for the good of this plantation, for the honour of our countrie, for the glory of God, for my owne salvation and for the converting to the true knowledge of God and Jesus christ, an un beleeving creature, namely Pokahuntas."

After paring down this line, if found it's true meaning slightly disturbing. Underneath the unfamiliar spellings and the confusion of the long run-on sentence, basically John Rolfe is making a covenant with God that for the benefit of his community, his country, and for the glory of God, to convert Pokahuntas to Christianity. To believe that converting one Native woman to Christianity would have such an overwhelming effect is beyond me. At first it opened my eyes to the weight that Pokahuntas had in their society. She must have carried great significance if converting her would dramatically benefit their entire community. However, as I continued on in his letter I began to wonder if it wasn't just about John Rolfe. The way he glorified her and her potential made me think that it wasn't just that she had particular significance in their society, but it was that Rolfe was, i think it is fair to say, obsessed with her. Later finding out John Rolfe married her only affirmed this suspicion and, as disturbing as it was, began to see a humor in the relationship between his feelings toward her and contemporary interactions between people who are interested in each other today. Whole concepts such as facebook-stalking which are widely understood today are rooted in the same emotions Rolfe felt in writing this letter, although he couldn't explicitly admit to those feelings because it would have been socially inappropriate at the time.